Queen Mary

QUEEN MARY Tennyson, Alfred London, Henry S King & Son. 1875 1st ed [BINDING] GRABAU Tennyson, Alfred., QUEEN MARY., London, Henry S King & Son. 8vo viii, 278pp [9] Full blue morocco, front cover with elegant on-laid and gilt interlacing floral designs of green leaves and cherries accenting with a Jade cabochon as a center piece, spine gilt ruled in six compartments, gilt titles and date, gilt turn-ins. TEG. Signed [John F] Grabau. in fine condition. John Frederick Grabau was born in Wisconsin in 1878. He trained as an artistic bookbinder, apprenticing in the printing shop of Gies & Co. and at Peter Paul's bookbindery. In 1902, Grabau became the protégé of Louis H. Kinder at the Roycroft community bindery. Kinder founded the Roycroft Bindery in 1896 and attracted many talented young artists, including Grabau, Harry Avery, and Charles Youngers. The Roycroft community produced some of the finest hand-crafted books, furniture, lamps and metalwork of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Grabau left Roycroft in 1905 to found the Derome Bindery in Buffalo, New York. He named the bindery after Nicolas Derome, who was noted for his dentelle borders. Grabau died in Aurora, New York, in 1948.